School safety isn’t just about protecting students from intruders. It’s also about helping to protect students from themselves from the lure of illegal and prescription drugs.

Rep. Tom Calter, D-Kingston, has proposed new Community Safe School Fund legislation to support school safety by proposing a funding formula for hiring school resource officers.

“We live in dangerous times, and whether it’s drugs or an intruder we should have a first line of defense that gives us the best shot at defeating these two enemies,” he said.

The legislation would give communities the option of creating at Town Meeting their own fund to pay the salary and benefits for school resources officers, along with the training and equipment they would need to provide substance abuse awareness, counseling, and emergency preparedness and response.

Calter served on the Silver Lake Regional School Committee from 2004 to 2006, during which time the position was discontinued due to lack of funding. After a federal grant ran out, Kingston funded the position and was reimbursed by the school district, but that, too, ended.

Calter considers a resource officer to be a core requirement. Ideally, he said, there would be a school resource officer at the middle and high schools with differing responsibilities at the two schools. He said there is the potential for an increase to the tax base, but it’s about the common good.

“I think it’s a real mistake,” he said. “I think it’s shortsighted. It’s not just about intruders either. It’s also about being at the forefront of fighting this synthetic and prescription drug problem.”

Constitutents have privately shared with Calter many personal stories of the profound, long-lasting and sometimes permanent effect these drugs can have on young lives. For many, he said, heroin is the drug of choice because it’s the cheapest to buy.

School resource officers play a role in developing intruder response planning, Calter said, and are trained to recognize aberrant behavior and can be proactive in spreading the message about the dangers of heroin and other drugs.

“The right officer will develop a relationship with the high school kids and get and give information every day that can fight this drug problem,” he said.

Calter was at a political event last summer when the father of a college student approached him to share his daughter’s story. She had died in college and had become addicted to heroin in high school. It motivated him to propose the new legislation.

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“It’s something you hear about all the time, but nobody wants to talk about it,” he said.

Other legislators who had signed on in support of the legislation are Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Duxbury, Rep. James Dwyer, D-Woburn, Rep. Colleen Garry, D-Dracut, and Rep. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.

Each community would create its own Community Safe School Fund account. The funding mechanism would be similar to that of the Community Preservation Act. A town could contribute up to 3 percent above the Proposition 2 1/2 limit, and the state would contribute 50 percent matching funds. Calter said he expects a debate at the State House on the percentage of matching funds.

Silver Lake Superintendent John Tuffy is intrigued by Calter’s proposed legislation. Tuffy said it sounds like a creative solution to a very difficult budgetary issue, and he supports the inclusion of funding for the kind of specialized training school resource officers need.

“This opens up a new avenue for a specific, important purpose,” he said. “It’s a creative solution.”

He said that events of the last several years, from Newtown to student bullying, and issues like drug abuse that compound the daily trials of student life, bring the need for school resource officers into focus.

Calter has not begun the full court press to line up endorsements but said the legislation already has initial support from the chairman of the state’s public safety committee, the teachers union and the Massachusetts Patrolman’s Association.

Kingston Police Chief Maurice Splaine commends Calter for bringing the issue of funding to the forefront, because it’s the primary reason many schools don’t have resource officers. A former DARE officer in Kingston, Splaine said he was at a meeting of police chiefs when this legislation and other legislation from Calter were discussed.

“Tom Calter got a perfect score,” he said. “He’s trying to make a difference and get funding.”

Calter said the resource officer can have a positive impact on students in many ways. He said his son, Ryan, became a police officer because of the relationship he and other students had with the school resource officer when they were in school.